The singer was disparagingly compared by some to Captain Tom Moore.

Sam Smith has said they “didn’t mean any malice” by sharing a photo of themself appearing to cry during the lockdown.

The 27-year-old singer posted an image on Instagram last month, showing them with their head bowed in apparent despair and captioned “Stages of a quarantine meltdown”.

Some disparagingly compared Smith’s response to that of 99-year-old Captain Tom Moore, who has raised more than £18 million for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday on April 30.

Speaking on Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden, Smith said the humour of the post had not been “picked up very well”.

They said: “It was six weeks ago I posted a picture and everyone else was posting pictures.

“It was probably bad timing of me, but I use my social media as if it’s just my friends on it.

“I posted with my humour and stuff, but it just didn’t get picked up very well, but I didn’t mean any malice by it at all.

“You know me, I’m always sharing all of my feelings all the time and trying to be as human as possible but sometimes maybe people can read it wrongly but that wasn’t really meaning it in a malicious or nasty way, I was just trying to be myself.”

Second World War veteran Capt Moore has been praised by the Duke of Cambridge and a long list of celebrities, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is looking at ways to recognise his “heroic efforts”.

Smith, who is self-isolating with their sister at home, has been vocal about struggling with mental health, especially during the pandemic.

They said the news on Thursday that lockdown had been extended by at least three weeks caused “a little bit of a low”.

They added: “But I can’t complain. I’m with my sister, I’m at home. I think the hardest part is sitting back and watching everyone else working so hard, that’s the hardest part of this, but I’m doing all right, the time is moving.”

It comes after Smith, who identifies as gender non-binary, postponed the release of forthcoming album To Die For, and announced plans to rename it because it “doesn’t feel right” amid the Covid-19 outbreak.